Concrete Expansion Joints

Facts About Construction Expansion Joints

The use of construction expansion joints is of crucial importance in many if not all architectural structures that need to prepare for the possibility of movements due to contraction and expansion. Any building whether it is commercial, industrial or residential goes through a constant cycle of contraction and expansion due to the temperature changes that take place around it. When it gets hot everything expands and when it gets colder everything contracts and unfortunately each type of building material does those things at different rates.

Using what are also called isolation or control joints is important especially when dealing with poured concrete slabs which make up a lot of the construction material that surrounds us in our daily life. Expansion joints are needed because concrete starts to shrink during the curing process and then it can suffer further deformation, whether it’s expansion or contraction due to external temperature changes; expansion joints play the role of control systems for any and all cracks that would appear in the concrete, making the slab crack in or as close to the expansion joint as possible.

Controlling how and where the concrete cracks is important, because it will definitely crack, sooner or later but without these specially designed joints it may crack in random places which can in turn lead to the affecting the overall structural integrity of the entire slab. Once that happens then water can start to infiltrate the crack and steadily erode it from the inside or even worse reach the soil underneath the slab and start eroding it thus causing a much larger failure of the slab in the future.

So expansion joints allow the material to expand, contract and crack as it wishes in a controlled manner, however the cracks will still be visible and could still pose a future threat to the overall integrity of the slab and that is why expansion joints make use of filler covers in order to prevent that from happening.

These covers will work as a type of elastic seal for the expansion joints, ideally being made from materials that can expand and contract with the concrete like certain types of woods or various synthetic substances. They will bridge the gap between the slabs while protecting the cracks that appear inside the joints. It has to be said that every once in a while these covers or fillers will have to be replaced because they will degrade with traffic and environmental changes in temperature and humidity.

There are many manufacturers out there that build specialist material meant for use in expansion joints, either in helping create them or in covering them up, manufacturers like Northland Construction who supply their clients with easy to use expansion joint caps, fiber expansion joints, zip strips and joint filler, everything that you need in order to create and properly maintain an expansion joint.

Construction expansion joints are used when working with other types of construction materials, but with concrete they are especially important due to the particular properties of the material and the fact that it is universally used.

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